Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 25, 1990 TAG: 9004250598
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/4 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: HARTFORD, CONN. LENGTH: Medium
The furor over the gun, called the Sporter and produced by the newly created Colt's Manufacturing Co., has renewed debate over the Bush administration's policy on assault weapons.
It also has become a political issue for state officials in Connecticut, which put up $25 million in state pension funds earlier this year to help buy Colt Industries' firearms division and end a bitter four-year strike. The state owns 47 percent of the new company.
Late Tuesday in Hartford, the state House voted 96-49 to approve a bill requiring permits for assault weapons, including the Sporter rifle. The bill imposes a 10-year mandatory prison term on anyone convicted of using assault weapons in carrying out a violent crime.
Supporters of the bill say they're optimistic that it will be passed by the state Senate, but opponents pledged to bring intense pressure on the upper chamber.
"This is feel-good legislation," said Susan Misiora, a lobbyist for the National Rifle Association. "It isn't going to do anything."
Rep. Robert Godfrey, one of the bill's chief backers, said chances of getting the bill through the Senate were "pretty good." Other supporters said it was a first step in getting assault weapons, often the gun of choice for drug traffickers, off the streets.
"The Colt Sporter rifle is no different from the AR-15 and it should be on the list," Rep. Christopher Burnham said.
Colt Industries voluntarily stopped producing the AR-15, a version of the military M-16 assault rifle, for the civilian market in March 1989, a day after the Bush administration halted imports of similar weapons.
At the time, Bush administration drug czar William Bennett called Colt's decision "an act of civic responsibility."
Last week, Colt's new management started shipping the Sporter, a modified version of the AR-15 that the company says is designed for sportsmen and is not an assault rifle.
There was no immediate comment from Richard Gamble, president of Colt's Manufacturing; he did not return a telephone call Tuesday afternoon. In interviews last week, he maintained that the new gun differs substantially from the AR-15.
But Handgun Control Inc., a Washington-based group, charged that the Sporter is simply a cosmetically altered AR-15.
"It is clear that Colt is trying to bamboozle the public with its claim of producing a `new' gun," Handgun Control leader Sarah Brady said last week. "There is no doubt that this gun is an assault weapon," said the wife of James Brady, who was wounded in the assassination attempt on President Reagan.
Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio, agreed with the gun-control group. He said the appearance of the new gun on the market highlights the need for a ban on domestic assault-style weapons.
In a letter last week, Brady urged Gov. William O'Neill to force Colt to stop production of the gun.
The characterization of Sporter as an assault weapon is particularly troubling for O'Neill and state Treasurer Francisco Borges, supporters of a domestic ban on assault weapons.
"The Colt management has represented to me that the Sporter is not an assault weapon," Borges said. "I am currently taking every step to ascertain the facts."
At the core of the debate between Colt's and the gun-control advocates is defining an assault rifle.
When the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms permanently banned imports of 43 types of weapons last July, it defined the weapons as "semiautomatic assault rifles."
David Conover, a lobbyist for the NRA, said the AR-15 and the Sporter are essentially the same gun, but the NRA doesn't consider either of them assault weapons.
by CNB